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It turns out the 17th century was a great time for women composers. Magnificat Baroque and its guest soloist, soprano Jennifer Ellis Kampani, are hoping that their upcoming program, Donne Virtuose, will lead listeners to discover the wonderful work created by four of such extraordinary women.

American Bach Soloists Music Director, Jeffrey Thomas, speaks about their annual performances of Handel's Messiah, one of the greatest oratorios of all time, in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. Baritone Jesse Blumberg and the American Bach Choir are featured in performance clips.

This work surveys a wide spread of old rites, practised during initiations, puberty, marriages, burials, and other major events of life. Relying on ornamental artwork on pottery and on ancient inscriptions and literature, the author examines, among other topics, Old Testament terms for 'dancing,' and forms of musical accompaniment in the time of the Hebrews; the sacred processional dance, performed by Hittites, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and other peoples; the ritual dance around sacred objects; and sacred dances performed during harvests and other festivals.

This is the third annual podcast to focus on some of the most interesting early music heard throughout the year. The list, whittled down from hundreds of choices, is meant to cover recordings that have been heard either on the weekly podcast or program, yet there is at least one gem that will be new to Harmonia’s loyal followers.

With Italian influence and in defense of the French style, these three composers entertained contrasting rapports with the Court at Versailles. The delicacy and richness of music by Charpentier regularly attracted Louis XIV in Paris, while Marin Marais, Lully's successor, enjoyed the grace of the King in the splendor of the Court. Couperin, meanwhile, sailed incessantly from Paris to Versailles and was able to skillfully combine French and Italian styles by the subtle and learned style of his writing.

Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783) was arguably the most successful opera composer of the 18th century. Together with his favourite librettist, Pietro Metastasio, Hasse defined the genre of opera seria for an entire generation.

Almost exactly a year ago, the New York soprano Jolle Greenleaf, the Boston violinist Scott Metcalfe and a couple of dozen close associates from around the country presented the fruit of what they called the Green Mountain Project: a performance of Monteverdi’s grand and glorious Vespers of 1610, mounted in observance of the work’s 400th anniversary.

We are thrilled that 2011 sees the tenth anniversary of the Handel House Museum and to celebrate the history of the house, the main exhibition in 2011 will focus on the building itself, its occupants and the developments it has seen over the centuries.

As many of you know, I've been in indifferent health for the last couple of years, and my doctors are now insisting that I must take life more easily. So, with enormous regret, I am closing the retail part of Dance Books and in future shall run the company solely as publishers. I have tried to find a buyer for the retail part of the company, but so far without success, so if there are any eccentric millionaires out there who've always dreamt of running an online dance bookselling company, do feel free to get in touch.

A new kind of songbook emerged in the later fifteenth century: personalized, portable, and lavishly decorated. Five closely related chansonniers, copied in the Loire Valley region of central France c. 1465-c. 1475, are the earliest surviving examples of this new genre.

The international workshop inThoiry, France(2010 February 19-26)is directed toallinstrumentalistsof the“Baroque” orchestra, beginner and experiencedmusicians,as well as modern instrumentalistswishing tolearn about thepracticeandinterpretationofRenaissancemusicandpre-classicalBaroque.It is also directed tosingersinterestedinthe same repertoire.

Change can be good. It certainly was for David Daniels. After studying at Cincinnati College's Cincinnati Conservatory of Music as a tenor, he switched to the highly unlikely vocal category of countertenor as a graduate student at the University of Michigan.

“With its tricky ‘orientalist’ connotations, Singspiel-originating spoken dialogue, not to mention the problem of finding five outstanding singers who can cope with the considerable demands of the solo roles (and the commercial challenge presented by the need to pay a chorus who sing barely a few bars of music), Mozart’s Die Entführung aus den Serail does not receive as many stagings as it deserves.

The discovery of a previously unknown score of a flute concerto by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) in the National Archives of Scotland has been announced. Andrew Woolley, Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, has identified the score of 'Il Gran Mogol' as a lost part of series of four ‘national’ concertos by Vivaldi. The manuscript score (GD40/15/54/2) is in the hand of a copyist, and is among the family papers of the Marquesses of Lothian, an important collection that was purchased by the National Archives of Scotland in 1991.

Easy Dances for Renaissance Lute, selected from sources in the Leipzig music library.

35 easy dance pieces for Renaissance Lute. Music for lute does often come in form of complete lute books from the period, but sometimes music is found bound together with totally different books. From these appendices we have made this edition: from an appendix of Leipzig Ms II.66. and Leipzig II.5.32b. Expect enjoyable dance pieces that are not difficult to play. French tablature / Renaissance tuning (Euro 20.-)

Restoration Theater (in brief)

In 1660, Charles II was crowned King of England. The country had been in a political and parliamentary dictatorship for many years, and had now been restored. Hence, a new chapter in English history called the Restoration. It wasn’t just the restoration of the monarchy, however, but the return of a culture that had been shut down during the dictatorship, such as public theaters.

In a season bursting with Messiahs, the Clarion Music Society celebrates the holidays with a repeat performance of its popular Bach for Christmas concert, which sold out in December 2008.

On Wednesday, December 15th, young Early Music maestro Steven Fox once again conducts the Clarion Choir together with the period-instrument Clarion Orchestra and an outstanding group of soloists in Bach’s celebratory Cantata No. 133 ‘Ich freue mich in dir’, and the 2nd and 5th Cantatas from the Christmas Oratorio, ‘Und es waren Hirten’ and ‘Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen.’ The concert, which takes place at Park Avenue Christian Church (1010 Park at 85th Street), features soloists Sherezade Panthaki, soprano; Melissa Attebury and Virginia Warnken, altos; Oliver Mercer, tenor (Evangelist); Daniel Mutlu, tenor; John Boehr, baritone, and Douglas Williams, bass.

This recording represents in a sense the accomplishment of René Jacobs’s Mozartian enterprise: after showing us another way of looking at the Da Ponte trilogy and taking a profoundly innovative approach to the two great opere serie (Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito), he has now set out to harmonise the multitude of viewpoints exposed more or clearly in Die Zauberflöte, ranging far beyond its Masonic rituals and mixture of dramatic genres. As a result, Mozart’s most ‘nocturnal’ work is illuminated as if by . . . magic.

(SEATTLE, WA) Early Music America (EMA) and Naxos will collaborate on a competition for early music soloists and ensembles, whose prize is a debut commercial CD recording, which will be produced and marketed by Naxos. EMA and Naxos hope to promote the career development of emerging early music artists and the philosophy of historically informed performance by offering to the public a CD of the highest quality.

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